Sunday, May 22, 2016

And after an absolutely crazy start to the year, my first work summit has finished (what we've been working towards since December last year). There's still one more to go, but after an exhausting weekend working, I get to take the week off work. After the amount of hours I've been pulling lately it was so nice to get some time to myself. And even though I spent the first couple of days off trying to catch up on my sleep, I did make some progress around the house.

For a while now, I've been planning to make some storage changes. I went through my stash of books and have culled out the ones that I haven't touched since purchasing, sifted through my patterns and am planning to sell off the ones that I no longer want. But the main thing that I have been wanting to do is re-sort my fabric stash. When I moved it all into the sewing room three years ago, I folded my fabric neatly and put together a spreadsheet of everything that I have. However, as time passes, I missed a few pieces on the list (both adding and removing) and the neatly folded fabrics were not so neat.

A couple of months ago, a friend linked me to a fabric folding technique which helps you fold your fabric to exactly fit the space you have. So, I took the time to refold everything and update my spreadsheet. It took a long time to refold it all, but I am so pleased with the results. My cupboard stash is so neat and tidy now, it all fits on the shelves and it even takes up less room than it previously did. If you can spare the time, I highly recommend spending some time sorting out your stash. You will love it as much as I do in the end...

Wednesday, May 11, 2016

I can't believe that this is my first post of the year. And it's already May! Where has my year gone?! Actually, it's mostly gone to work. I've been incredibly busy of late with a large work conference which is about to start in a few days. Add to that a bit of work on fixing up and repainting a chest of drawers and I've been a bit of a home body for the last few months.

Don't get me wrong, I have been sewing - mostly in preparation for events to come later in the year and a few wardrobe pieces for my everyday life. I just haven't been out in costume much. I suppose it didn't help that we've had a real stinker of a summer in Queensland this year and I just really don't like getting into my costumes and sweating the entire while.

That being said, I did manage to attend one day of Gold Coast Supanova back in April. Budgetary constraints due to evil dental work meant that I didn't have the funds for a whole weekend of accommodation and convention, but it was still nice to make it down for the day. I myself didn't take a whole lot of photos, but there have been a good number come out from the photographers in attendance.

See, the thing is, I was part of a cosplay group. My first big group actually. And it was great fun to be a part of something with a bunch of fantastic cosplayers. Our group was the DC Bombshells based on the alternate cover art by Ant Lucia. As you can see from the photos below, we had a good number of cosplayers in the group. I chose to do Black Canary. I had already collected a few pieces of fabric for the costume last year, so I jumped at the chance to whip it up and participate. Of course, it wasn't quite as simple as "whipping" it up. Embroidery, tailoring a few patterns, corsetry (to give a lovely silhouette), wig, props. The list never ends! But I am incredibly pleased with how the costume came out and I can't wait to wear it again and maybe shoot it in a nightclub style scene.